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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31031 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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This really just strikes me as sneering. There is always going to be one or two humans that become figures of a thing when people perceive that thing to be against their interests. Decarbonization is against the interests of most people, even if a lot of people favor it politically. Most of the wild eye things they discuss at Davos will be mostly bad for most people if the Davos types get any of their policies pushed through before technology makes their preferences seem weird, outdates their ideas wholly, etc.

Take, for example, dishwashers. Almost everyone acknowledges that the new, Eco-friendly ones don't clean very well. Is this the machination of Klaus Schwab incarnate? No. But he, the WEF, etc are parts of the movement that floated the theories that led to crappy dishwashers being the norm. Does he argue for fiscal deregulation? Sure. This is a non-mover for the modern right. And basically everyone at Davos will eventually say something that embraces left-ish globohomo. Which is basically the enemy of the new right.

I think the fact that Scwab and Davos provide a platform is pretty important in of itself (after all, consider the whole SSC-sphere!), so maybe he actually is unimportant, but I think you could very much argue that the WEF acts as one hell of a Schelling Point for ideas.

EDIT: I should have posted this under the other comment below, this is basically saying the same thing, but shorter.

Decarbonization is against the interests of most people, even if a lot of people favor it politically.

That's a pretty contentious assertion to just plop down. I think you're mistaken, and my guess is that the source of the error is you considering people's "interests" quite narrowly. Are you following a logic of "decarbonisation will make many/most things more expensive while delivering equivalent/worse service, therefore it's against most people's interests?"

Are you following a logic of "decarbonisation will make many/most things more expensive while delivering equivalent/worse service, therefore it's against most people's interests?"

Yes. This will be true for every person in the world that doesn't have a specific decarbonization profit plan (your Al Gore, Tesla, etc). It will also be true for the descendants thereof. For all "crises" (of which atmospheric CO2 is a dubious one, see the work of David Friedman) typically the better approach is to just outgrow it. We did this with, for example, smog, vacuum tube tvs, leaded petrol, lemon cars, etc. We also have largely done it with incandescent lights and heavy coal. We have yet to do that with gas stoves/heat and ICEs.

We did this with, for example, smog, vacuum tube tvs, leaded petrol, lemon cars

Smog and leaded petrol both required government intervention because the pollution is an externality. Leaded petrol is still better than unleaded from the point of view of the engine, which is why Avgas is still leaded.

The same is true of CO2 - the reason why the worst-case scenarios associated with RCP8.5 (which people like David Friedman correctly point out won't happen, despite the amount of research funding going into working out just how bad they are and the media attention this attracts) will not, in fact, happen, is that governments saw the problem and acted to mitigate it - mostly by subsidising the R&D and early adoption of the technologies (PV cells, efficient wind turbines, electric cars etc.) that will support a lower-carbon society.

Achieving RCP4.5 instead of RCP8.5 is in everybody's interest (except for a few selfish Boomers) because it is the difference between your grandchildren thriving and (with an unacceptably high probability) frying. Fortunately, it doesn't require a Great Reset to achieve. But achieving it has required and will continue to require elites to talk to each other about decarbonisation at places like Davos, and COP meetings, and G20 summits. Going further to achieve RCP3.4 or RCP2.6 isn't in the interests of Red Tribe Americans who have large sunk investments in a high-carbon lifestyle, but it would be in the interest of a lot of people if the technology to do it at a reasonable cost exists. (Tip from a physicist - it does, it's called nuclear power).

In a sane world, working out whether RCP3.4 is a good idea or not requires both elites talking to each other about what can be done and what it might cost, and voters talking to each other about whether it is a good idea or not given the facts that emerge from that conversation. In the world we actually live in, this won't happen, among other reasons because the culture war is making us stupid and US climate policy is going to be decided by whether ragetweets about Hunter Biden's laptop are more or less viral than ragetweets about George Santos' CV. Davos is selling (at an extremely high price) the idea that these conversations are happening and that business executives are valued participants in them.

The same is true of CO2 - the reason why the worst-case scenarios associated with RCP8.5 (which people like David Friedman correctly point out won't happen, despite the amount of research funding going into working out just how bad they are and the media attention this attracts) will not, in fact, happen, is that governments saw the problem and acted to mitigate it - mostly by subsidising the R&D and early adoption of the technologies (PV cells, efficient wind turbines, electric cars etc.) that will support a lower-carbon society.

Pardon me, but that's complete and utter nonsense.

Whatever lower carbon intensity is achieved in allegedely civilized regions places like 'Eu' or Canada is going to be completely swamped by Indians, Chinese and whomever is clever enough to build a coal-fired power plant.

Also please do not that countries that in the EU, the countries that most heavily adopted the technologies you name, generally have worse carbon emissions than countries that stuck to their legacy tech such as nuclear power plants.

Almost everyone acknowledges that the new, Eco-friendly ones don't clean very well.

The new ones are still much better than the very first ones we had back in the 90's still. And we saw those as huge improvements (and luxuries!) so there is some space between as good as it could possibly be and good enough. My new eco-friendly one cleans everything I throw at it. Sometimes I have to set it to heavy wash but that is about it. Whereas my first one 30 years ago needed pre-rinsing pretty often.

Yeah, you have a unique experience. My Grandma says her 1999 washer was the best. My mom was confused by the new washer she installed in 2016 to replace the one originally put in in 2000. My landlord has an explicit policy that grains shall not be put in the washer, and if maintenance is called and they find them, you are the one who pays for the call.

Are you using powder detergent (or possibly liquid detergent), or the packets? There's 2 or 3 videos from Technology Connections about how dishwashers suck not for intrinsic reasons, but because modern processes (i.e. the pods/packets) skip the pre-wash step where some of the soap is used to get the initial crud off.

I recently got a new mid range dishwasher and I was astonished by how silent it was. It was an immense improvement to anything we've had before and actually makes a fairly big difference to us. It's "eco friendly" as well.

I didn't think major improvements in stuff like this were still happening but apparently they are.

One of the weirdest ways of dividing people into two types is people who expect dishwashers to work and people who don't. It doesn't seem to be amenable to experience of your current dishwasher - I wonder if it is driven by the dishwasher in the house you grew up in.

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